You may have seen the odd posters hanging in the union featuring a fish with a tie and warnings of gun violence. Unusual content, considering these posters are advertising a play. However, it’s not that strange if you know the personality behind them – a woman whose journey to create this play has been anything but average. Jenni Stobiecki, a senior from Cerritos, CA, finishing up an impressive interdisciplinary major of English & Theater, is the creative mind behind Bowdoin’s upcoming spring play, Den of Thieves.
Jenni never intended to leave Bowdoin with a theater degree. She spent her life surrounded by theater, growing up with a drama teacher as a stepfather. Both Jenni and her mother would help out her stepdad behind the scenes for his plays by creating the costumes, and handling the tech and makeup. After this experience, she found her theater classes in middle and high school subpar. However, never losing her love for theater, she ventured into a theater class at Bowdoin and was hooked. Determined to be a Government major in her first year at Bowdoin, she quickly found her schedule filled with theater classes, and before she knew it, was declaring her new major.
Jenni says her final decision to switch was largely a result of the sense of community theater provides at Bowdoin. “Everyone works together to put on the production – it’s your creation with the aid and input of everyone involved,” Jenni explains. Although as director Jenni does lead the charge, she’s thankful for the input of her cast, without whose ideas Den of Thieves couldn’t have reached its full potential.
Reflecting on her time at Bowdoin, Jenni knows her choice to switch majors was the right one, as the theater department helped her grow and gain confidence. At times she wished she had studied at a theater academy, but ultimately she feels her time at Bowdoin helped open her mind to a variety of people and experiences. She explains, “The Liberal arts helped give me a wide array of knowledge… I was able to do anything I wanted [in the theater department]… it’s open to people with no experience.”
The theater department has definitely done something right, as Jenni’s for passion for Bowdoin theater is obvious. She lights up when talking about her friends and classes, and tells me through a smile of her plans to become a dramaturg after college (for those of you, like me, who have never hear that word before: a dramaturg is theater-speak for a person who, Jenni tells me, “is very hands-on with scripts, actors and all parts of the production process”).
Den of Thieves will be Jenni’s first time directing, though she has been involved in Masque and Gown – a club on campus which offers resources to help directors put on plays. When Jenni was given the choice of a play to get involved with this semester, she chose Den of Thieves, having only seen a scene from the play acted out once two years ago in a directing class. The scene made such an impression on her that Jenni read the full script, and chose it as the play for the spring show this year.
At its core, Den of Thieves is about diversity and stereotypes, Jenni says, as well as the struggle for survival, self-awareness and self-love. Support Jenni and the rest of the amazing cast and see Den of Thieves this THURSDAY, FRIDAY, and SATURDAY at 8PM (or catch the Saturday matinee at 2PM) in PICKARD. Watch out for stray fish and gunshots!